New Article: Bread and Butter Hull Construction

Waste Less Wood than Cutting a Solid Block

Using the Bread-and_Butter Technique for Solid Hull Model Ship Construction

Ship Plans Provide Everything You Need to Scratch-Build a Red Sea Dhow

Red Sea Dhow

 The most basic form of scratch-built ship modeling is the solid hull technique that we demonstrated on our page Creating a Solid Hull Ship Model. While the method demonstrated there - using a solid block of wood to create the hull for a 19th Century William Doughty-designed revenue cutter - works well for smaller models, a solid block of wood large enough to build a bigger model will be either hard to find, or prohibitively expensive.

In our series Scratch-building a Bread-and-Butter Solid Hull Ship Model we discuss the popular method of scratch-building a solid hull for larger ship models, called the bread-and-butter technique, that reduces the thickness (and expense) of wood needed as compared to the solid block method.

This method uses the waterlines from the ship plan to cut out several planks that will be layered like slices of bread to create the solid hull, and glued together (the butter).

A major advantage of this method - in addition to less cost for wood than a solid block - is that since each plank is cut to the breadth of the hull at a certain level, there is less filing and sanding to reach the final shape than a single block of wood, which must be cut to the widest breadth of the hull.

Free Ship Plans U.S.S. Bolster

Salvage Vessel U.S.S. Bolster

The Last Remaining World War II Era Auxiliary Ship of Her Class

Ocean-going Tug Served 49 years in the U.S. Navy

U.S.S. Bolster sister ship Opportune (ARS-41), circa 1945

U.S.S. Bolster (ARS-38), now part of the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet located in Solano County, California, is the last surviving member of her World War II era auxiliary ship class.

Built by Basalt Rock Company, Napa, California, U.S.S. Bolster's keel was laid on 20 July 1944. She was launched 23 December 1944 and commissioned 1 May 1945. Presently owned by the U.S. Maritime Administration, U.S.S. Bolster is a member of the inactive National Defense Reserve Fleet.

Our Free Ship Plans of U.S.S. Bolster include profile, deck, section, lines, and detail plans.

More Progress on Midwest Products' Chesapeake Bay Flattie Model Ship Kit

Midwest Products' Chesapeake Bay Flattie

Plank-on-Bulkhead Model Ship Kit

Promises Ease of Construction

Midwest Products Chesapeake Bay Flattie kit.

While solid-hull ship models are generally considered the easiest to construct, Midwest Products has created a "Success Series" of ship model kits that offer plank-on-bulkhead models that promise to make model shipbuilding easy for the complete novice.

We decided to test this theory by making Midwest's Chesapeake Bay Flattie ship model kit our first on-line kit build. The simple lines of these boats that made them ideal for locals to build from locally-available lumber should also make this an ideal ship model kit or a person with no prior wood ship model building experience.

The biggest challenge of plank-on-bulkhead ship models is planking the hull, and because of the simple shape of these boats, this task is accomplished in this kit with a single plank on each of the sides, and two planks on the bottom.

The kit comes with well-executed die-cut and pre-cut parts, as well as fittings, rigging line, sail material, and a well-done set of instructions and building plans.

Click on the links below to visit each stage of construction:
Chesapeake Bay Flattie Kit: Introduction
Chesapeake Bay Flattie Kit: Chapter 1, Keel and Bulkhead assembly
Chesapeake Bay Flattie Kit: Chapter 2, Deck Assembly
Chesapeake Bay Flattie Kit: Chapter 3, Mast Steps and Bow Stiffeners
Chesapeake Bay Flattie Kit:Chapter 4: Keel and Chine Strips
Chesapeake Bay Flattie Kit:Chapter 5: Installing the Cabin
Chesapeake Bay Flattie Kit:Chapter 6: Planking the Hull
We have a lot more steps ahead of us, so keep checking back for updates!

Scarf Joints for Model Ship Builders

Technique for Joining Timbers Important in Shipbuilding

Scarf Joints Create Ship-length Timbers from Shorter Lengths

An Important Technique for Ship Model Builders, Too

In building full-size wooden ships, it is impossible to get wood timbers long enough to make some of the structural members.
In these cases, several pieces are joined together lengthwise by "scarfing": tapering the ends, lapping them and then fastening the two together.

An illustration from Charles G. Davis's The Building of a Wooden Ship shows the details of creating different types of scarf joints, which are useful to the model shipbuilder as well.

Often, the model shipbuilder must join several pieces of wood around a curve to make sure the wood grain is aligned to its strongest direction at each point of the piece.

Some examples of this include the stem, which curves through the gripe to join the keel; log rails that curve around the bow or stern, or transom pieces with complex curves.

Scarf joints are the strongest way to join these different pieces to ensure a joint that will not fail.

Our page Scarf Joints gives Davis's rules of thumb for creating strong scarph joints.

Free Ship Plans Brigantine Schooner Carlo

Free Ship Plans of Brigantine Schooner Carlo

Italian Cargo Vessel Built 1909

Brigantine Schooner Carlo

Built at the end of the age of sail, and the dawn of the 20th Century, our Free Ship Plans of the Brigantine Schooner Carlo demonstrate the pinnacle of sail design as naval architects attempted to use modern hull designs and materials with simplified rigs that needed fewer sailors to handle.
Even though the Age of Steam was upon them, many of these last sailing ships earned a living well into the first half of the 20th century.